The days stretched endlessly. Ashfall had no mercy, no rhythm that Kael could rely upon. Sunlight, filtered through ashen clouds, cast a dim gray hue across the ruins, giving every street and building the look of a tomb. Each morning, he awoke stiff and aching, muscles sore from sleeping atop rubble, debris, and remnants of those who had perished. He shivered in the cold, ash-laden wind, teeth chattering as his stomach twisted from both hunger and anxiety.
At first, Kael attempted to move cautiously through the streets, marking landmarks in his mind: the collapsed clock tower leaning precariously, the partially intact apothecary with shattered glass still glinting faintly, the twisted iron gates of a town square now littered with skeletal corpses. Every step was a negotiation with the past, every ruined building a possible threat. The stench of decay clung to everything—rotting flesh, dust, mold, and something metallic that made him gag repeatedly.
Survival was an unforgiving teacher. He discovered water dripping from a half-collapsed fountain, murky but drinkable after he let it settle. Spoiled food scavenged from abandoned stores caused a near-endless cycle of nausea and vomiting. Yet, hunger could not be denied. He became skilled in picking morsels from broken carts, scavenging partially eaten cans, and even tearing remnants from the clothing of the dead, anything that might sustain life.
But survival was not only physical; the mental toll was immense. Every ruined street whispered memories he had buried: the warmth of his family, the betrayal of the old man, and the repeated deaths that had brought him here. Why do I continue to awaken? he wondered nightly, staring at the ash-covered sky. Is it a curse? A punishment? Or something… mechanical, like a trap set by some unseen hand?
Kael also began experimenting with his body, testing the limits. He jumped from ledges, climbed decayed buildings, assessed how much exhaustion he could endure. Each time, he felt a nagging certainty: death would come swiftly if he failed, and yet he could not escape the lingering draw of curiosity. Am I still myself? he questioned silently. Am I even human anymore?
It was during the third week that he first saw them. Shadows against shadows, faint yet deliberate, moving with an intelligence that chilled him to the bone. Tall, inky black shapes slinking through the ruins, sinewy but strangely limbless, their movements synchronized as though the group itself were a single entity. He called them Umbras, in his mind, a name to anchor himself against the incomprehensible.
Kael's first encounter was terrifying. He froze behind a collapsed wall, barely daring to breathe, watching the Umbras circle a ruined square. Their "heads"—if one could call them that—tilted in unison, crimson light glimmering faintly in the voids where eyes might have been. The creatures sniffed, shivered, and circled again. Every instinct screamed at Kael to move, to run, to hide, yet the ruins offered few places where he could disappear entirely.
Over the next days, Kael learned their habits. Umbras moved in groups of five or six, stalking silently, never straying far from open ruins and collapsed buildings. He discovered the scent of corpses kept them away at times, giving him fleeting safety if he flattened himself among them. Nights were worse: in darkness, their shapes became indistinct, elongated forms creeping across broken streets, approaching, retreating, circling. The creatures seemed attuned not just to sight but to sound, to vibration, to presence itself.
Kael also began chronicling his days mentally, as a measure of sanity. He counted each sunrise and sunset meticulously, noting which streets were safe, which ruins contained water, and which had hazards. He scavenged partially intact buildings for tools, old knives, glass shards, anything that might defend him. Hunger, exhaustion, and paranoia sharpened him, but at a cost: memories of his first world, his family, and the meaningless death at the hands of the old man intruded constantly, leaving him hollow with longing and dread.
The mental toll grew heavier when he recalled the fleeting dreams of other worlds, flashes of distant places where people lived, laughed, and thrived—contrasting sharply with Ashfall's total desolation. Is this punishment? he wondered, pacing along the ash-strewn streets. Do I deserve to live, or am I simply being broken?
Weeks passed. Kael's body grew lean, almost skeletal, but he adapted to the rhythm of the ruins. He learned to sleep in collapsed alcoves, to move silently on crumbling stone, to avoid Umbras and to scavenge water and edible remnants efficiently. Each day was a cycle of exploration, caution, hunger, and terror, punctuated by bouts of nausea and hallucinations. He sometimes saw flashes of red eyes in the distance, whispers in the wind, or the faint outline of movement among the ruins.
And then, on a gray morning, the Umbras noticed him. He had been scavenging near a broken fountain when movement caught his eye: five of them had emerged from behind the skeletal remains of a collapsed building. Their attention shifted in unison, and Kael realized in horror that he was the focus.
He froze, heart pounding, bile rising in his throat. Every instinct screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. He ducked behind a mound of corpses, clutching a piece of twisted metal like a makeshift weapon. The Umbras moved slowly, methodically, circling closer. The smell of decay mixed with ash and the stench of the creatures themselves made Kael gag, but he forced himself to remain silent, breath shallow.
Minutes felt like hours. He pressed himself against a shattered cart, trying to make his body part of the ruins. One of the Umbras raised its elongated head, crimson glint catching what little light filtered through the ashen clouds. It sniffed the air. Kael held still, praying the shadows would hide him.
Will this end? he thought frantically. Will I ever find another human, or another creature that is not this… nightmare? He remembered fleetingly the warmth of a hearth, the comfort of human voices, the normalcy of his first life. All of it felt unreachable, almost like a dream from another existence.
He could not move, could not breathe audibly, and yet he was alive. The Umbras lingered, their presence a tangible pressure, sensing something in him. Every second was agony, every heartbeat a drum of impending doom. And just as he thought they would leave, one of the Umbras tilted its head toward him in perfect, terrifying alignment with the others—a collective awareness. Kael knew in that instant that hiding would not be enough.
His stomach twisted, sweat poured down his back, and panic consumed his thoughts. The cliffhanger pressed in on him like the ruins themselves: the pack had discovered him. His only hope was the mound of corpses he pressed against, and even that might not be enough.
Kael, trembling, swallowed bile and ash, praying silently to something he did not understand. His life had become a relentless sequence of terror, survival, and fleeting glimpses of a past he might never reclaim. And somewhere, deep in the fissured sky above Ashfall, a sense of incomprehensible awareness waited—an echo of what was to come.